Veterans recalled the serious matters they faced while onboard the Cavalier,
which was manned by U.S. Coast Guard personnel during the war and made landings
in the South Pacific at Saipan, Tinian, Leyte, Lingayan Gulf and Subic Bay. The
Cavalier carried crew and equipment to put a regimental combat team and its
equipment ashore. The ship carried the 184th Combat Team of the 7th Army for
landing rehearsal exercises off Maui in the Hawaiian Islands.

Each of the three veterans had a different story to tell.

"I had an experience where a man was wounded right in front of
me," said McKendree, who lives in Pampa. "I stepped in front of him
and took the landing craft to the beach. . . . When I got home, they sent me
the Bronze Star for getting it safely to the beach."

Veterans said saving their ship - which they joined in 1943 - from
sinking left an indelible memory. The ship was torpedoed at about 1:30 a.m.
Jan. 30, 1945. Steerage was lost. Several compartments were flooded, and decks
buckled and split. No one died, but 50 were treated for minor injuries,
McKendree said.

"There was what? Six hundred twenty-five men in the crew?"
McKendree, 76, said.

"We don't have quite that many left, though," said Giles, 77, of
Pacific City, Ore.

Giles said the ship was not in danger of sinking because a damage control
team tended to it immediately. The ship was towed to Pearl Harbor, where it was
repaired and put back into service in September 1945. Most of the WWII crew was
transferred after the war, but the ship remained in commission until 1968. (go
to page 2)

"Do you remember that night we were torpedoed?" Ennis, 76, said to
Giles.

"Oh, yeah," Giles said.

"It happened right underneath me," Ennis said.

"I was in the chief's quarters," Giles said.

"It knocked me right out of my bunk. I didn't even have my clothes
on," Ennis said.

Giles said he received $21 a month while a seaman.

"They didn't have boot camps then," Giles said. "I went in
with my best suit on."

In addition to their experience with a torpedo strike, veterans remembered a
kamikaze plane that flew across their bow, and McKendree said he dreaded
nightfall and dawn because of the kamikazes.

McKendree and other veterans from USS Cavalier are holding reunion events at
the Radisson Inn Amarillo Airport, and plan to tour Palo Duro Canyon, visit the
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum and eat at the Big Texas Steak Ranch while
they're in town. Today, a banquet and meeting are planned. Ken Teel, vice
president for development and chief development officer at Cal Farley's Boys
Ranch and Affiliates, will be guest speaker.

About 100 crew members remain living from the USS Cavalier, although around
10 members die a year, they said.